Nature of Noses
by WhatBecomesOfYou
Summary: Emily had always felt like her nose was her most awkward physical feature, while Will's was like the rest of him. She was out of place, while he fit in anywhere. Will/Emily. Oneshot.


**Author's Note**: _Written before episode two, but I waited to post it until I saw that there was a category for EOMD._

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Emily had always - okay, not _always_ always - felt as though her nose was her most awkward physical feature. It was angular and sharp where other girls had cute noses with words like "button" to describe them. Hers, by comparison, just served as a nasal counterpart for her - out of place in the wider world around her.

She had found what her place in the world was: she was a doctor. She could have been anything she wanted to be - her high school guidance counselor had suggested she consider being a lawyer, because of debate, while her grandfather encouraged her to become a college professor, like him. Maybe she could even teach French literature, to be even more like him.

But she knew where she belonged, almost as if by instinct: she belonged here, in a hospital, holding patients' lives in her hands on a daily basis.

Maybe it helped, knowing Will. Will, who accepted her and knew her and helped her to fit into med school. He took her stammering and rambling and insecurities and instead of shunning her - he _befriended_ her. Maybe that was why she had fallen in love with him, in spite of everything - he had seen her at her peaks and at her valleys and he was still there.

Like everything else about him, though, she thought his nose was perfect. She couldn't rhapsodize about it all day like she could other parts of him - his kind heart, his firm, strong jaw, his unquenchable intelligence and sparks of fire. But his nose was well-defined and rounded in places where hers were - well, _not_.

His would fit in anywhere. Hers would never.

It took some time - anything good always did - but she found her place. Both hers and her nose's. She found where she belonged.

Will held her by the back of her neck, his strong hands so gentle and caring as they grasped her; she felt one of them absently stroke the fine hairs back there, under her ponytail, and she let out a gasp. She wasn't used to being held like this, and butterflies danced around her stomach and in her throat and if an autopsy was done on her right now, they'd find a thousand butterflies lodged inside her. Cause of death: being a human butterfly habitat.

And then, he pulled her closer to him, his nose brushing against her nose. She'd always felt that the most awkward and ungainly part of a kiss was how the noses interacted - where did the noses go? They looked like they would always collide and would bump up against each other. But Will - his nose slid right past hers and rested against her cheek, and hers instinctively did the same to him.

So_ that_ was where noses went. But it was hard to think about something as trivial as noses when Will was - _finally_ - kissing her; his lips pressed against hers, warm and supple and everything she had imagined that his lips would feel like, except so, _so_ much better. Their lips opened and meshed against each other, and her hand stroked at the top of his arm, and she gasped again.

"You okay?" he whispered as they broke apart, his eyes still looking into hers, as if he was attempting to see something inside her that she wondered if he could actually see.

"You don't know how long I've wanted you to do that." She laughed, a little louder than she may should have. It probably wasn't a good thing to laugh after kissing a guy, in retrospect. He might take it the wrong way, and not in any of the ways that it was intended. It was easy.

He smiled and brushed the tip of his nose against hers - maybe, just _maybe_ he could read her better than she had thought. "You've given me a good idea before. But _you _don't know how long _I've_ wanted to do that."

"How long?"

He thought for a second, and his tongue poked out from between his lips; she ached to touch it. "Maybe as long as you have. It just took me longer to realize than it did for you." At her wide-eyed expression, he then leaned in closer, his lips just barely above hers, and he whispered, soft as could be, "Sorry."

She swallowed hard. "For what?"

"For taking so long."

"You have nothing to be sorry for." And with that, she kissed him again, her nose fitting perfectly in tandem next to his. At last.

-_fini_-


End file.
